By Jim Rossignol on June 24th, 2009 at 11:10 am.
(All the images in this post click through to the full size version.)
Mr Payne is older, twelve years older, and living in Brazil. He’s no longer a cop with nothing to lose, and instead is a bodyguard for a wealthy Sao Paulo family. Rockstar have sent over a bunch of images of the new game, showing our favourite emotionally-tortured slow-mo diving dude in the process of dealing with Brazil’s unpleasantly-armed urban underworld. The game is being developed with the RAGE engine which powered GTA4, although with some modifications, including “brand-new particle physics technology to deliver spectacular, highly advanced close-quarters combat” and “an intelligent cover system”. Rockstar also report that “Bullet-Time, an addiction to painkillers, mature themes and Max’s ever-present internal monologue” will all be present in the new game. So that’s good.
Looks like a Sam Fisher game.
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This year is Old Men In Games year.
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Good to see that a bullet in the head is a treatable condition these days.
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So this has almost nothing to do with the previous games then..
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Yep, nothing to do with the previous games whatsoever; nothing at all…
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Yay another bald grizzled character to add to the roster!
I bet the cover system recharges bullet time as well as your health.
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Byebye film noir game – hello generic shootergame.
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It’s like a bleached out bloom-tastic rendition of the later sections of Man on Fire – with old Max replacing Denzel and his vastly oversized shirts.
The other ones were jolly fun, I just wish they’d pulled down the bloom slider a little as the over-exposed whiteout looks really detracts from the grit and grime in the scenes textures. Oh well.
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So, what pile of shit will this come with?. Rockstar Games Social Club?, SecuROM (that’s a given), Games for Windows Live?, PunkBuster?. What more useless drivel will they find this time to leave running on our computers, even after uninstalling the game?
Also, the first two Max Paynes ran really well with mid level hardware. If this is using GTA4′s badly optimized engine, I don’t have much hope for this.
And yes, it looks like a bastard cross between Far Cry and Splinter Cell. Why call it Max Payne 3 at all? (yeah, yeah, I know!)
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Question: Who is Max Payne when he’s not a burnt out cop with nothing to lose?
Answer: Nobody.
Chest high walls, waves of foreign people to blast instead of locals, and a stick-on beard.
Thanks a lot Rockstar.
In before the anti-AIM stuff: The above may seem irrational, but people would be outraged if they made an Indiana Jones sequel a dialogue based drama about an unsuccessful accountant struggling to deal with his daughters life threatening bone disorder, and they’d be thoroughly ticked off if FASA made a new MechWarrior sim only to tell people that the Timberwolf could only settle it’s differences with words and herbal tea.
DAMMIT. Indy uses folk to help him steal ancient stuff, 60 tonne robots shoot each other for no fucking reason, AND MAX PAYNE BROODS UNDER COVER OF SNOW ILLUMINATED BY GUN FIRE.
THERE IS NO OTHER GODDAMN OPTION. Gears of Grand Theft Arulco*: Bearded-time City.
*I betting they’ll be mercenaries at some point. There always is.
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Nice triceps!
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I don’t think the so-totally-not Max Payneness doesn’t bother me. I think the franchise had run it’s legs; something completely different is a good move.
It would have been nice to have given it a new title though. “Tropic Junkie: Totally Not Max Payne”, or something, maybe.
He appears to be dual wielding an uzi and a pistol, and (possibly in a cut-scene) a shotgun and a pistol. Mental dual wield combinations, woot!
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I’ll hold my opinion about the tone until i’ve seen more. But i’m worried so far. You played boiling point? That man had something to lose, it made his conflict meaningful. Max’s anger has been resolved. He slayed his dragon, what can a sequel really do to his personal journey?
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I hate it. Loved Max Payne 1 and 2, they we’re gritty film noir graphic novelesque goodness set in a corrupt city. This looks like generic fest.
Plus, Bullet Time is no good if there isn’t a black coat billowing behind you as you dive around.
So far: Fail.
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No NY
No Noir
No Remedy
No point
No Max Payne 3
This is getting silly, I don’t care if the game is awesome, but the lack of respect from developer to take name games and do whatever they want with them is getting silly.
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It is far far too early to start judging the game, obviously, but the two things that strike me most are firstly, he doesn’t appear to look anything like Max Payne in the first two games – not even if Payne got plump and fat. And secondly, I don’t like the goons wearing facemasks. I like to see the faces of my assailants.
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But I do love the Euphoria engine – it’s the sole reason GTAIV was gripping for me.
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I don’t care if the game is awesome
Surely that’s all that matters, ultimately. Getting upset about altering franchise templates is one thing, saying that keeping things “in the tradition of” is more important than good games being produced is a little silly.
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Crikey. That’s all rather negative considering we know almost nothing at all about the game. Why can’t some sort of cover mechanics and slow mo diving co-exist? Why does the shift in setting preclude the game from being dark and gritty in tone? I admit the screenshots are pretty underwhelming – mainly due to the eye searing over-use of bloom, but I’m not going to write off the game entirely due a few bland screenies. I don’t why shifting the setting and moving Maxs story into a new locale and period of his life is a bad thing.
What would you rather? Some horrible retconned thing where you play Maxs (previously unmentioned) brother in snowy Boston/Chicago so you can keep the setting and tying it together with some tawdry half arsed nonsense flashback thing?
Why, oh why are people so utterly horrified with even the slightest change? I can understand if they’d changed it into a bloody RTS or driving sim, but from what they’re saying it’s still very much a game about shooting people in the face in slow-motion with an absurdly overdone and dark storyline, so what’s the major issue here? Yes, of course it could be completely crap and generic, but labelling it as such when literally all you have to go on is a three line summary of the game and a few screens seems like being negative and contrary just for the sake of it.
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@ Jim
You’re absolutely right, of course. But wouldn’t you agree that a good game really doesn’t need the MP franchise to sell and can be a success on its own merit? It’s not even that I mind it not being like the first 2 MP games. It’s that the story was, well, done.
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Jim, Max Payne was never a shining light of amazingly innovative gameplay. In retrospect, what it stands out in memory for is the way it tells its story, and the characters in it. A game can be a buggy, ugly mess and still be remembered fondly for what it did with what it had. The definition of a “good game” is completely subjective.
I’m not convinced Rockstar have the writing chops to match what Remedy did, or even if so, i’m not sure a Brazilian favela is the right place to stage a film noir drama.
The thing is, this game can be AWESOME and we’ll still be stuck with a game that has effectively murdered the film noir sensibilities of the past two, and that, no matter which way you choose to spin it, it a stone cold shame.
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I can’t believe it’s not about shooting criminals in slow-motion anymore.
Oh, wait.
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“This is getting silly, I don’t care if the game is awesome,”
No, THAT’S silly.
It -could- still be good. But I don’t know now. I’m reserving judgement on this one.
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Gruff woe-is-me voice-over *check*
Dual Berretas *check*
Slow-mo shotgun cartridge ejection *check*
Sounds like Max Payne to me, albeit ‘Max Payne on Vacation’. But rather than get all upset, and slate the change of setting when all I’ve seen is a handful of random screenies and some token dev. chat… I think I’ll just wait for the game to come out instead.
\o/
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I really hope Rockstar sort their poop out before this comes out. (Sorry for the GTA4 whinge, it’s over.)
Looking forward to it, I’ve always been a fan of what’s his name in those games. Hark at me sounding professional.
But seriously, let’s hope it’s groovy and we’ll all be happy and playing it and killing people in their faces, but slowly. Looking good.
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How Sam Fisher meet Resident Evil 5…
No snow…? No Max Payne :-(
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In that first picture he looks like Father Grigori from Half-Life 2.
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Being unlike Max Payne does not make it a bad game. But they should have called it something else. Also, why the hell is a cover system seemingly a necessity theses days? Is it because console players don’t know how to hide round corners and duck behind stuff without pressing a button to do it automatically?
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@Ben Abraham
Now there’s an idea for an expansion:
Half-Life: Original Sin
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@Jim
Being awesome is all that matters to make it an awesome game if it had new characters and a new story. Keeping the tradition of Max Payne 1 & 2 matters enormously when calling it Max Payne 3.
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It’s just so damn bright!!
I’m sorry, but a Max Payne game is all about a dark NYC in the rainy season. I can’t see the point in changing a franchise so much and keeping the same name.
No wait, I guess it’s to do with the BToC (Big Truck of Cash) effect. For further a further example of this see Far Cry 2 (highly over-rated IMHO, but guys do like burning things).
If you want to do something like this just change the name. Using the same game mechanics does not make a game part of a franchise, it’s all the story and asthetic that does that.
Please devs, come up with new IP rather than just respining old ones.
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Heh. The way I remember it it’s the complete opposite. “What’s that annoying game with the tightrope sequences and the tedius film-noir-parody pastiche? Oh the one with cool sideways diving business.”
Still, it is different now. So I get the general point.
Now it should be narrated in sweaty Southern Gothic style with Viggo Mortenson reading Cormack McCarthy-esque prose.
(Look at him though. What they hell has he been doing all these years? He might have lost his wife and his love and everything else but Male Pattern Baldness was the last straw. No point being metrosexual now. He sold off his jacket and pomade collection and got a job on the next itinerant fishing trawler heading south)
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OH GREAT!
Just another AMERICAN VIEW of the world…
First it was the Russians, then the crazy Europeans, for some time the Asians and now the South Americans? (of course no africans cos otherwise the “african americans” would go berserk)
Why not showing the fucking wackos from usa?
I just hate this shit…
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Might become a good game, although it looks like Rockstar are taking the generic approach. At least I found nothing so far that hasn’t been done in other shooters.
What really disappoints me, though, is the absolute lack of anything that made Max Payne one of my favorite shooter games. I mean, when you – deliberately – decide to use an existing franchise, you look at what made the series so special. And the image of Max – broken and alone – in a city surrounded by a swirling maelstrom of snow is what comes to my mind first. And now I see screenshots of some random fat dude in an HDR-pumped Santo Isabel.
I’m so underwhelmed.
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I feel… sad, when I look at these pictures. I rarely judge games by the screen shots alone, but oh boy, what about the noir setting?! And what the hell has happened to Payne? Did he become a biker between the second game and this?
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Looks absolutely terrible. Extreme shittyness.
RIP Max Payne.
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My feelings?
I fucking hate cover systems and regenerating health (as in no health bar, regenerating shields or partial crit regeneration like in MP1&2 are fine). Those came very close to ruining Brothers in Arms Hells Highway and just make the whole game feel clunky to me. As if I’m a magnetic action figure.
Also this looks as far removed from the original as if City Of God 2 was to be set in Skegness.
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Wow, people on the intrnet are angry. Thanks for opening my eyes RPS.
You’ve seen a couple of pictures. Calm the fuck down. This isn’t the “death of narrative gameplay” to re-mix a Kermode quote.
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Yeah, and didn’t you just hate it when they tool Half Life in to the country-side? I mean Half Life is all about City 17. No wait, I mean: Didn’t you hate it when they took Half Life out of Black Mesa? What were they thinking? Half Life is all about laboratories.
And now this? How dare they attempt noir in a South American setting; who do they think they are? Leonardo Padura Fuentes? Everyone knows you can’t portray sex, violence and crime without sentimentality south of +30°!
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While the change of setting doesn’t exactly fill me with hope, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and wait until PCG actually review the finished thing.
I wish I could say I trust the developers but, you know,
GTA4
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i remember….
when RPS was based on disscussion and not the home of angry internet men going mental over a handful of screenshots.
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nah sorry jim i disagree with the whole ‘if its a good game then who cares’ arguement. I like my characters and the way the franchise develops them, to the point where even if the game is a tad shakey, i want to find out how the they are doing. splinter cell double agent is a good example, a pretty rough around the edges release and some bold but essentially dumb features were saved by sam fisher.
that said I will reserve judgement until i have played the game
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It looks all right.
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i don’t have anything about cover systems but i wish they would stop jumping into the bandwagon for once and have a little originality, all games are starting to look the same, its like every game aspires to become “the one true clone… to rule them all”
and why did “darker and grittier” suddenly become “balder, fatter and dirtier” ?, splinter cell 5 is going with the same and ill be surprised if metal gear 5 doesnt end with Raiden taking off his wig, i can understand an attempt at refreshing a character but everyone is doing it, wth?!?
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“No Noir”
Why, cause of a dozen screenshots showing a bright day?
People crying about the lack of something they appear to know fuck all about :sigh:
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Well, to throw my 2cents in: I thought Max Payne 1 was utter tosh and while Max Payne 2 had a superb storyline I thought most of the actual gameplay and design was staggeringly boring and repetitive. Therefore decrying a sequel because the setting and direction has changed seems a little churlish to me.
That said, I *will* decry this game for MANY other reasons:
1) People are HAPPY that they are using the engine from GTA IV? Either you people had supercomputers beyond the dreams of man or you have standards so low I have no interest in your opinion. That game, from a visual perspective, was a total farce. Hugely ugly at any playable framefrate and plagued with performance drops that actually brought it to a halt in any kind of fight scene. This alone will put me off buying it.
2) For all that I don’t mind a change of scenery this XBOX 360, bloomtastic, could-be-any-game-out-there rendering style makes me puke
3) Continuing No.2, this is clearly going to be a console game so, assuming a PC version actually gets delivered, it will be a port and will suffer all the usual hand-bittingly annoying nonsense that comes with.
4) DRM. If DRM were custard this will be slashing around, knee deep in the stuff. There is no force on earth that could ever make me install their utterly ridiculous Rockstar Social Club, or whatever it was, ever again. What will make it particularly galling is that after Rockstar went to all that effort to make it uncrackable, lo and behold a crack was available 4 days after launch so, as usual, only the poor saps who bought the game were punished.
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I’m with ‘dartt’ on this one. Roll on more extensive coverage, dev-chatter and in-game footage, as I, for one, am looking forward to Max Payne 3.
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He looks more like Kane from Kane & Lynch than Max Payne.
Game seems to be missing one critical thing: Max.
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Wish I could be optimistic for this and stay clear from joining the ranks of angry Internet men, but there appears to be nothing to get excited about here besides the name.
Hearing about the inclusion of a cover system is pretty much the last straw. I don’t particular have any issues with cover systems in general, but I really can’t see it fitting in with the Max Payne style of gameplay. Payne was always about constantly moving, diving around. This is probably why it found its natural home to be the PC, as it does seem to be one of the few third person games that can get mouse and keyboard controls right. A cover system (and regenerating health too) is just going to slow things down.
Not only the gameplay, but the setting has been completely changed too. New York city was like another character in the original games. It represented the series all most as much as Max Payne’s long jacket (also gone.) Instead we are given a very sunny Brazil. It would be like a new series of Firefly not set on board Serenity, or a new Batman film that has no mention of Gotham City.
I see no reason for this to be called Max Payne, besides the obvious.
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@cullnean: Aye, those sure were the days, old fella. Now if only those pesky kids would get of my lawn. Lawks!
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@ John McNeally: I lived in Brazil for two years. It’s not an American view; parts of it are exceptionally violent. The Brazilian view of Brazil is that parts of it are very violent as well.
Go watch Elite Squad or City of God.
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change denzel in man on fire for max pain, and i dont see what the problem is.
seems like a win to me.
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Oh, I missed one:
5) Cover system. The man who invented these (some buffoon like “Dude Huge” no doubt”) needs to be castrated. You know what I should have to do in a 1st/3rd person shooter when I want to not be shot? *Find* cover, not press a button and have the game do the hard stuff for me. The entire concept of having a part of what makes FPS/TPS interesting, i.e. the difficulty of them, taken away from me to be replaced by a button press, all because they want to market their (ultra-violent, gore infested, not-suitable-for-children-ever) shooter to 10 year olds who lack the experience and coordination of long term PC players.
If the game is too hard and you find yourself getting shot, instead of whining about it and demanding they take away the skill, PRACTICE MORE! This is something that has even leaked out of shooters now and is infecting other game types (looking at you GRiD)
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Apparently this isn’t on topic (on topic appears to be wishing death on the devs after seeing five pictures and judging that the game and everything associated with it is ruined), but in one of the pics the very first one, Max appears to be holding a pistol and a SMG! I personally feel this a betrayal of all I hold dear.
Max Payne was all about two pistols or two SMGs, you can’t mix them, the game is ruined, the pc is dead, god hates us etc.
Personally I’m looking forward to the new take and will see how it handles. The internet seems particularly angry and shouty today, is it on it’s period?
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The bloom effect has angered a lot of people – maybe you should get angry with Brazil too, having such a humid and sunny weather at times… I think this particular nit may in fact be an attempt by the devs to anchor the game in the regional setting.
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@ nikos
If only that were true. But the thing is “bloom” is just a low quality way of doing *actual* real-time lighting within games. It looks utterly unrealistic and is simply used to cover up bad rendering and poor quality textures. Now if they had a good HDR based lighting system in there people would likely be all for it but as long as the (woefully underpowered) XBOX 360 is the target platform that will never be the case. Thus our anger.
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I don’t care if the game is awesome
Surely that’s all that matters, ultimately. Getting upset about altering franchise templates is one thing, saying that keeping things “in the tradition of” is more important than good games being produced is a little silly.
I tend to disagree because if they wanted to make an awesome game which had nothing to Max Payne then away with them, but don’t use the Max Payne franchise to flog it off, incase it is infact shite.
If it does turn out to be awesome then these are clearly talented people and deserve any plaudits they receive, but the illogical use of an already popular, existing franchise undermines their talent and the motives for their involvement in the industry.
I’m not naive, I know that money oils the cogs of the industry, but regardless of how good this game is, if it isn’t “Max Payne”, except for in name, then the developers are being highly dishonest.
If it’s good I may buy it, but from the looks of it, it doesn’t look very Max Payne at all, so it’s use of that title seems dubious at best.
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Wow, sounds better than that terrible fourth Indy movie…
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In this next game of the Splinter Cell series, Sam Fisher is trying to… oh, wait , wrong franchise.
Rockstar should have kept the old Max, this Max gained 12 years and lots all of his cool. :(
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I would try and make another rational comment, but it would seem that people are so keen to let forth some bile that they seem to have abandoned all pretence of reason in favour in favour of being bitter and snarky. Welcome to the internet I suppose.
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@Freezerbag: I definitely agree hahah, the action wasn’t bad, but the main story… wow, incredibly bad.
It’s quite a performance of Spielberg though, who more or less managed to turn Indiana Jones into E.T. and have Georgey Lucas agree with it too.
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As long as the great tactile feel of the combat is there (hello, I’m looking at you Boiling Point) then I’ll look forward to this.
Max Payne being an very angry man ‘of a certain age’ really intrigues me and I think it’s a great way to carry the character onwards.
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It seems to have abandoned the noir aesthetic pretty heavily- which was a pretty integral part of the series. I don’t know, I’ll wait and see.
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Is that…. Bruce Willis?
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Will he be leaping forward and slowly going BLAM… BLAM… BLAM… , that’s all I need (to know).
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Everyone who is moaning, shut your face! You haven’t played the game or seen it running so you cannot judge it.
I saw your mum briefly in a picture and she looks like an easy tramp.
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way too many videogame heroes are suffering from Baddass Decay, i can understand Bruce Willis not being able to play his part in that yawn of “Die Hard 4: i want to make a 24 movie” but why forcing artificial characters to age ? are they hoping old fans, now bald, dirty and living in a third world country with the last scraps of their savings after the “moneygeddon” will sympathize with him ?
@Howard: the cover system makes a lot of sense for consoles, it slows down gameplay and stops enemies from moving around too much without looking stupid (try an early console fps and youll notice enemies barely move), there is no way they will enjoy a true fast moving action game without a controller as accurate and fast as the mouse, still, i dont think Max Payne will be Max Payne after adding cover mechanics
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can some one please explain what Noir is?
i dont think it means what you fellas think it means.
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Reply to Dr Gonzo
Yes we haven’t seen much of the game. But it’s four months from release and we still haven’t been shown anything. That is a bad sign however you look at it.
The original writer not being involved is the real clincher for me. It might still be good but right now it’s got cash in written all over it.
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What games have the studio in charge of this made previously?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir
It’s a fairly wide term, and in this case people are using it to mean very specific 1950s gangster/cop parody.
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Jim, I look upset to you? Sorry if I gave that impression, not my intention or my state of mind. But still, yes I disagree with you about this.
A name is a name, a brand is a brand, if you are going to use it, respect it, no matter how bland or rich it was from the beginning, if you are going to develop a game, show it a bit of respect and don’t use it as a marketing tool to grab attention built over something you didn’t create in first place.
Being a good game is not enough, not for me. If that makes me silly for you, I’m really sorry to hear it but that is what I think.
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@jim
i know :)
but people seem to miss the point of what noir is
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They should have called it Fallout 4. Or Maybe Tetris – The Revenge.
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It looks good, but decidedly not Max Payne-esque at all. Disappointing, but hopefully it’ll turn out well.
@Howard:
Just to clarify, this “hard part” you speak of … it involves holding down the crouch key, right?
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Oh snap, y’all just got wiki’d.
I’m not sure how “this can look terrible” when it’s so very attractive. Since when does a color palette determine the depth and seriousness of the plot? Are we really that shallow that we can’t pull themes apart from colors?
I’m also thinking we should drop this whole “cover system = console = worst game in the world” shtick… it’s okay guys, there are plenty of good things that have come from consoles, and cover systems aren’t about dumbing down gameplay, it’s about creating something akin to a movie experience. If we’re talking about realism… well just consider a standard PC FPS, and for cover you’re holding the gun at your side and planting your nose into the wall while waiting for the enemies to stop shooting. After they’re done shooting we sprint… SIDEWAYS while taking some shots. That’s the pinnacle of realism?
While we’re at it, the console vs. PC debate as almost as ridiculous to me as the Xbox vs PS3 fanboys going at each other’s throats. Ignoring quality just for the sake of defending the PC, we should be beyond that. If we’re really so “disgusted” by consoles and their ilk, then why act like that which you despise?
@Jerd, don’t worry, in that picture he is indeed holding 2 smgs :) Although down a couple from that he has a shotgun and a pistol.
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The first time I saw Man on Fire, I thought that it should be a game (and would probably be a better game than movie, though I liked the movie okay). I envisioned a game that wasn’t quite open-world, but open-ended, so you could investigate different paths to figure out where the kidnappers were, and the game could be radically different based on what path you took.
I didn’t think that I would get my wish, but with John McClane running around (with a beard) and pretending to be Max Payne, whilst half-mimicking MP’s gameplay (and also trying to be a little bit of Marcus Fenix at the same time). Oh well. I have hope for this game, as I would really like it to be good, but I’m firmly in the camp that’s decrying sacrilege.
And hey, whining about people whining isn’t “discussion” either, it’s just condescension. I really do hope this game is good, and if it is, I’ll play it, regardless of the fact that the first two outings with my beloved constipated-face crime-killer were what I would consider “important” games for myself and this looks like it won’t measure up. Even if it turns out to be a good game, there may be a little part of me that is always sad that we didn’t get to see Max Payne done justice (notice I said “may” — here’s to hoping).
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Hah, hilarious. The game industry keeps stomping over its own intellectual property, simply slapping brand names like Fallout or Max Payne on games with only peripheral relations to the franchise, and all the apologists can say is “stop whining” and “as long as the game is good”? Heh. Kind of a self-defeating the whole purpose of brand recognition, no? I wonder how long one can lean on brand loyalty while simultaneously having no internal brand consistency? Certainly longer than they should as long as the game journos protect ‘em.
Hah. Good fun.
Hah, nice identifying the flaw there. Dark and gritty is what this game looks like, but “dark and gritty” as the modern game industry uses it is very, very far removed from the noir setting as utilized by Max Payne.
Also, can we drop the “don’t complain based on a few screenshots”-argument? That statement is only meaningful if the game doesn’t look as it is shown on these screenshots, which seems exceedingly unlikely.
Hah.
I wish.
You think this Max Payne will move, act, recover and utilize superior knowledge and smarts because he’s an old man? Heck no. He’ll just be a young man, but with an old man skin, just like every other “old man” in shooters.
An FPS with an actual old man, that’d be fascinating. Someone who recovers slowly, can not exert himself for fast movements too long, uses tactical advantages and sets himself up to be better positioned than the opponent thanks to his experience, that’d be interesting. These old men texture skins just bore the socks off me.
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Reply to Jim
Which is what Max Payne 1&2 were. Or to be more precise a neo-noir parody of traditional noir. So yes that is what we mean by noir.
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No matter how you turn this shit it’s Max Payne in name only, so what’s the point? If they wanted to make a great action game they could make a great action game. Yes, making a 3rd game set in New York would probably be pushing it so I can see why they want to change things but this franchise did NOT need a continuation.
Max Payne, bodyguard? He didn’t want to kill people, he’s not looking for the action he wants it to go away. Wtf is this? And the cover system is only there so that console tards can be given enough time to get their crosshairs on people
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This argument is going round in circles. Those who don’t feel the game is in keeping with the spirit of the franchise (nor in keeping with the visual style, tone or setting) keep pointing out exactly that while those keen to defend the game until we see more keep saying that “if it’s a good game what does it matter?” to which the complainers reply “it matters because it’s not the same”. Both arguments are entirely valid and entirely boring to read over and over again.
On the subject of the screenshots: looks like they’re hinting heavily at you being able to mix and match weapons which I imagine will be a back-of-the-box feature line.
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Also the dumbing-down, console-audience argument is even more boring to read and I would dearly love for people to stop using it because if anything it makes you look as blindly over-reactive as the audience your ire is directed towards.
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Kind of a self-defeating the whole purpose of brand recognition, no? I wonder how long one can lean on brand loyalty while simultaneously having no internal brand consistency?
Forever, if the games are still awesome? I’m not sure what your point is.
(Proper old men would be ace, yes.)
@Bhazor: nothing in that definition of noir precludes a Max Payne 3 being set in contemporary Sao Paulo from being noir.
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@Brother None
You’ve convinced me: I want to see a real Old Person ™ in a game. That does sound oddly compelling. I have this image of someone who’s been around the block once or twice and knows how to get things done, but now has the limitations of age that just make things harder to get done. Picture Boiling Point but instead of running around and shooting everything that magically spawns (or magically flies) you have to be a tricky old man. Awesome.
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Reply to Jim
Because theres been plenty of famous film noirs set in sunny Brazil right? It was a parody/homage of a precise genre, a genre whose iconic imagery didn’t involve bald sweaty men fighting in sunny Brazil.
But again my main criticisms are 1) the original writer is uninvolved (though I gather him and his team did have plans for a sequel) and 2) it’s four months from release and we’ve only just seen the first screenshots. That suggests a serious lack of faith in their own game. Which isn’t a good start.
Again it might be good or it might not. It’s too early to tell, but we should have been told more.
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If a studio is able to make awesome action games, let them make their own stuff. Why they need to use Max Payne brand? Remedy didn’t need a established brand to create their action game, why Rockstar, a much bigger studio, needs it?
It’s cynic, a marketing tool to grab extra attention, that is the problem. And it shows lack of confidence in their own vision and skills too.
In any case, I’m with Pags here, boring and circular debate. I understand the “what is the problem if the game is awesome” point, I just don’t share it, and I think studios would enjoy more and put more creativity in creating their own stuff, instead of being forced to work on something others created.
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I’m not angry in the slightest about this – it could well be a very fun game, and the complaints I’ve heard about the game actually getting (SHOCK!) a COVER SYSTEM after all these years so that Max can actually crouch under a waist high obstacle, rather than moving so that his squishy cop head is shootable, but his arms can’t be used – well, those complaints baffle me.
I will join those wondering whether this is a good move in terms of character/art direction. The Max Payne I remember had a black jacket billowing out behind him, a slightly-too-square head (including hair), and lived in a city of perpetual night and snow.
No hair (except beard), no jacket, no night, no snow. I hope Rockstar know what they’re playing at here.
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@mo
No, I do not mean that and you are either being a smartass or you have no grip on the differences between PC and console action games. The point is that in console games everything is labeled and easy to use, like a Fisher Price toy. Cover is labeled as such: I mean ffs it is actively highlighted in some games. “You are safe HERE”. Utterly ridiculous. Having to actually consider the layout of the situation you are in, work out lines of fire, find cover dynamically and learning when to crouch, dodge, peak, fire from cover…etc is the mark of a good shooter on PC. “Hold button to not die” then let go while the auto-targeting picks out enemies is the mark of a console “shooter”
@JKjoker
You are totally right, and that is the entire issue. FPS/TPS games are so watered down on console it is laughable. Now if console shooters would stay on consoles I would not care less about them. They can be as bad and generic as they choose. Problem is that thanks to the over saturation of the 360 and the lazyness of todays devs, PC shooters are now created for console first and then shunted to us (the “dying” platform) afterwards.
Sure people will argue that we brought this upon ourselves with piracy but that is rubbish. The reason the PC is in decline (if that is indeed true: I would just say it is no longer the primary platform) is because dev teams can shovel far worse games onto the 360 in half the time and charge £50 a pop for them.
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Its like sayin mario aint mario if the princess isnt in the other castle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-r9jm5g3WU
this thread
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Have to disagree too, it might be awesome but it doesn’t change the fact that I think it kind of devalues a setting and universe of which I have fond memories of.
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I’ll give it a pass – the whole attraction of the originals was the difference to it, the gritty noir look, its just been replaced by a generic tropical look, i bet the people you are fighting in it are a cartel, theres no imagination
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It looks to me like a copy of the very meh John Woo’s Stranglehold, which held my attention for about one afternoon, before never being played again.
Strangehold was okay, but nothing special. I’m getting the same sort of vibe from Max Payne 3; there’s nothing unique about it, from what I’ve seen.
MP1 & 2 had a pretty unique location (MP1 in particular, I can’t think of any other game which used a snow locked NYC) and brutal, stark violence to match it wonderfully. This is starting to look a bit generic now, with a bright, sunny tropical location, generic Foreign foes, and bog standard combat. It reminds me a little of Just Cause 1, which again was nothing really special to me.
Maybe they should have just left the Max Payne franchise to grow old gracefully.
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cullnean: no it isn’t. This is more what people would say if Nintendo made him into a 2 metre tall guy with a big baseball bat and made him wear his cap backwards.
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Grand Theft Earthbound?
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It does’t look like it’s going to have the same feel as the other two at all. How can you have a film noir in the jungle?
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That awesome and brand recognition are not related concepts. I could make an awesome Aliens 5 starring Audrey Tautou, basically an introspective stroll through Paris for the first half of the film before setting up a believable and scary psycho-killer who likes to dress up in a xenomorph suit. It could be the most awesome cinematic experience in this century, and yet it would still destroy the Aliens franchise brand recognition.
You seem to think “awesome” excuses everything, but that’s exactly how franchises don’t work.
Exactly. Imagine you’re told a bunch of young guns are coming your way while you’re set up in an old mall, and rather than the solution being circle-strafing and making use of cover and moving around quickly to isolate them and take them out, your limitations mean you build a few traps, then cut the power when they enter, throw a few flashbangs and use your superior experience in moving about in the dark to take them out in their confusion.
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“Kind of a self-defeating the whole purpose of brand recognition, no?”
So some people are saying that the games industry sticking rigidly to a formula is a good thing?
P.
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@Dominic White: have you played MP1 or 2 ? they are all about entering a room, hitting the shot dodge button, killing everything and then watch your enemies collapse on the floor with your guns smoking (which was even cooler than it sounds when it felt new)
IF you ever used cover it was for taking a breath between shot dodging
the game got really boring and annoying if you slowed down the pace or you ran out of bullet time “mana”
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I’ll get it if it’s good. And I hope it’s good.
Althugh to be honest, I don’t think Rockstar can win. They’ve changed it, now everyone thinks it sucks. If they hadn’t changed, they’d be deemed unoriginal, that they’re just milking the franchise.
Also, screw the idea of playing as an old man: I want a game where you can blind people with the laser sight of your gun. That would be awesome.
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Interestingly, the Film Noir wiki that was linked to by Jim does say:
“Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, and a few cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, in particular—are the location of many of the classic films.”
But this is followed by:
“A substantial trend within latter-day noir—dubbed “film soleil” by critic D. K. Holm—heads in precisely the opposite direction, with tales of deception, seduction, and corruption exploiting bright, sun-baked settings, stereotypically the desert or open water, to caustic effect.”
So, if we apply that definition, could it be that Rockstar are being very clever and following the progression of the Film Noir genre? Yeah, I doubt that too. It may not be an accurate view that Noir has to be in a city, but it is the image you get when you think of such films. It was the typical image that Max Payne paid homage to and it doesn’t make much sense to make a film noir homage when most people won’t recognise it as such.
Just would like to point out, that my criticism of the cover system being used here is not a console vs. PC argument. I am perfectly happy with Mafia 2 using cover, as I spent most of the original behind cover in a gun fight. The early Max Payne’s you were unlikely to stay behind cover for much longer than a second or two, as the combat was much faster. Expect the gameplay to be very different. It is just another element of this game bearing no similarity to previous instalments.
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Yes, I too love using straw men instead of honestly debating.
No, “some people” aren’t saying that, “some people” are saying that brand recognition works perfectly fine and hand in hand with the idea of progressing within a framework, building out ideas and evolving them to a higher point.
That’s not what this is. This is replacing one idea with something else. And not just with something else, but replacing one idea which is original with another idea which is overused and cliche. How exactly is that more progressive?
Good Frith, I sometimes think the complete lack of understanding of the difference between change and progress is one of the most harmful things in the gaming industry.
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WAAAAAAAAAAA!!
MAX PAYNE 3 ISN’T EXACTLY LIKE MAX PAYNE 1 AND 2!!!
THE GAME MUST BE SHIT EVEN THOUGH I’VE NEVER PLAYED IT OR EVEN SEEN LIVE FOOTAGE OF IT!!!!!
DON’T EVER SHOW ME ANYTHING DIFFERENT TO WHAT I WAS EXPECTING!!!!
way to go gamers.
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So if a sequel changes anything, everyone’s up in arms about how they’re “ruining” the series. Okay, fair enough.
But, if a sequel doesn’t change anything, then reviews just go “meh, more of the same”, nobody buys it, and everyone’s up in arms about how they’re “milking” the series now.
So now they have to walk a “sequel tightrope” whereby they need to change something, but it can’t be anything major, and they won’t know they’ve gone too far until they do.
Is this some kind of exercise in frustration, designed to make sequels so unpalatable that nobody makes them any more? If so, then bravo, the gaming industry needs fewer sequels and more original ideas. But if not, then maybe we should pause and think about what we’re demanding of them.
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For those arguing over whether there is such a thing as Brazilian noir, here’s an extract from the book More Than Night: Film Noir in it’s Contexts that you might be interested in:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rhMU8xVGG5sC&pg=PA229&lpg=PA229&dq=south+american+film+noir&source=bl&ots=F1YShiLM_d&sig=t0fD6f4-qmbGXIhPkvq8Zrmn6rY&hl=en&ei=vEJCSpD1LdSwjAfRpKDtBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
Some of you might also remember the very excellent Hitchcock movie ‘Notorious’.
Of course that is a little besides the point in the case of this as visually they don’t seem to be playing off of that film history, but I just wanted to be pedantic for pedantry’s sake.
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Again, they don’t need to change anything. They only need to evolve and add to what’s there. “Change” in the sense of replacing one element of the game with something else entirely is outside the “tightrope” you’re talking about, evolving existing gameplay isn’t.
This isn’t rocket science. I honestly don’t get why the industry as a whole apparently misses this wholesale.
Brazilian noir would be fine. But heck, that’s not the issue, as you said yourself. The issue would be that they name as one of their major inspirations “City of God”. A fine film, but about as a noir as the thing I scraped from the bottom of my shoes this morning.
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Well, I still think MP3 will win, but maybe just not with this particular demographic :) I’m still in the tentative stage in terms of this game. I haven’t formed an opinion one way or another, and until I see some actual shooting of bullets, use of bullet time, the cover system in action, etc. it will remain that way.
In some defense of the brand recognition side of things, we’re not entirely sure how this ties in, or if it does at all. Max has, as someone stated before, basically faced his past demons and prevailed over them, so it wouldn’t make perfect sense to put him back in the city to have an emotional relapse. There had to be a new angle if it was following along the brand. In my mind, creating an exact replica of the first 2 games does nothing to protect brand recognition, brands and IPs go somewhere.
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The Old Man image being used is kinda intriguing I guess. For some reason I’m thinking of a grumpy old man pissed off with life, something like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.
Hell, maybe a blend of Gran Torino (the setting and storyline) with Max Payne (the gunfights and action) could make a decent game…
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Indeed, if they had maybe taken inspiration from something like Luis Bunuel’s Los Olvidados I think it would’ve been a really intriguing step forward. Of course, they didn’t.
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@Jeremy: i agree, it will probably be succesful with a new demographic, but then whats the point of doing a sequel ? if you are going to give the finger to all the old fanbase and go out to grab new fans why not just use a new character ?
Its the same as Fallout 3, is not a “bad” game but it is certainly not fallout, the DLCs are even less fallout, why the hell didnt they just do “Oblivion with guns” ™ ? what was the point of using the fallout name if you are going to alienate the whole established fanbase ?
using franchises to make things that play and look nothing like the old products feels like they are trying to scam us, plain and simple, it doesnt really matter if its “awesome” or not
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I hope the pills will ease the pain.
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There is a genre of noir-like movies that are filmed in South Africa. That’s what they’re going after here.
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This didn’t need to happen, this is a travesty, blah blah blah.
Yeah, after MP2 there really wasn’t a place for them to go except maybe a side-story game about Mona, so they pulled some new shit out’ve their asses lumped together from recent “success” stories and are hoping for the best. The majority of the people who are bitching about it will buy it anyway because they’re hopeless and don’t understand how to stop developers from producing this kind of crap.
Me? The only thing about those screenshots that interests me is the concept of mixed dual-wielding, something I thought should’ve been in the second one at the very least.
It’s really easy to judge something you havn’t seen in action, especially when they take a character and put him in a new and wacky situation for the satisfaction of their wallets. Right now I see Uncharted plus Conviction with a bit of Torrente thrown in for good measure. Could be fun. Worth more than 20 bucks? Probably not.
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So long as it contains the thrilling conclusion to Lords and Ladies, or further adventures of Dick Justice, I will be happy. Or a re-imagining of Address Unknown. Maybe re-dubbed into Portuguese?
Also, Mona Sax.
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JKjoker, when I said “this demographic”, I meant this group of people on this site. I’m also not insinuating that it won’t appeal to the people who loved the first 2 games, just that most people are unwilling to for one second think outside of the prison of their own minds.
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new idea
max pain is OldBoy
locked in a room for 15 years without reason or contact then released with a week to find out who did it and why.
may contain squid, hammers and an albino ninja
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“I could make an awesome Aliens 5 starring Audrey Tautou, basically an introspective stroll through Paris for the first half of the film before setting up a believable and scary psycho-killer who likes to dress up in a xenomorph suit.”
That’s not what’s happening though, is it? Defaulting to the extreme example doesn’t help your argument.
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More of that additional content: Address Unknown marathon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUXUyItb1ys
That’s the “essence” of MP I love: sideways, pointless fun, games in games, extra story.
I suppose the bar games and “friend dates” in GTAIV is Rockstars’ CV in this area, but they felt forced and unfun to me.
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Nor does it invalidate it. I’m drawing an analogy, if you think the analogy is invalid, argue how it’s invalid. Simply saying “that’s an extreme example” in no way invalidates the argument.
Brand recognition relies on the evolution of core elements of the brand. Replacing core elements is a form of change, but it’s not a form of evolution. For this principle, it is irrelevant how awesome the end product is, because you’re still applying a brand name to a product that contains only a part of the elements tied to the brand. You can put a sliding scale on how many elements are changed and how badly, but does that really matter for the core argument?
Man, there’s a lot of lazy arguments in this comment thread. Almost makes me want to pull a Vault Dweller in commenting on the smartiness of commenters, but I love all you guys too much for that :D
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My problem is this: Why call it Max Payne when you are changing that much of the character (including his voice..)? The only answer can be brand recognition surely? But what brand recognition is there when that isn’t Max Payne?
No arguments about quality here, it just puzzles me as all it serves to do is upset/disappoint some people.
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Mature themes? Rockstar? Not terribly mature I’d wager.
I hope it’s good, and the gameplay probably will be but I worry they haven’t got the wit to pull off the wonderful hard boiled parody that made the first two games stand out so much.
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@Brother None:
“Analogy is the weakest form of reasoning.”
Seriously, guys. All they did is change the setting and make the main character look a little bit like Jeff Bridges. You’re still going to get a pseudo-noir storyline and slow-mo shooty gameplay. If it looked exactly like MP2, people would be complaining about it being a rehash.
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The point: you have missed it.
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@ Brother None : I would say it’s a bit early to be making judgements about how far the game has strayed from it’s brand. If the next thing we see is a video of Max sneaking about like Sam Fisher or Solid Snake accompanied by an on rails driving section then fair enough. If it contains lots of shots of him shooting people in the face whilst diving accompanied by some gravelly voiceover about how he ended up in Brazil then the jobs a good ‘un.
That they have moved on stylistically in the characters appearance and the games locale is about the only thing that you can tell from those screenshots and they only form a part of the games identity. Replacing New York with Brazil necessitates a change in the characters appearance and using the passage of time in order to justify a shift in the visual style is hardly the vast and earth shaking sort of shift that people are making it out to be.
I can understand some peoples concerns or apprehension, but what irks me about this whole debacle is the huge over reaction from some people and the general tendency to make up huge swathes of detail about the game just to justify their opinions.
We have a few screens and the merest hints about gameplay and some of his conjecture has gone way beyond the point of sensible speculation and well into the realms of hysterical fanboy wailing.
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So.. no more Captain Baseballbat Boy?
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@Howard
The first one.
Can we agree then, that Max Payne (a PC game!) invented bullet-time, which is pretty much a “hold button to slowmotion therefore never die” button, and then use the mouse to effortlessly shoot things which are just standing about and not shooting at you? Therefore, the so-called “PC shooter” is nothing more than the N00Bification of shooters, and therefore PC “SHOOTERS” SUX, and console shooters are teh awesomes?
Or maybe, when developers add mechanics they craft the gameplay around it and balance the difficulty taking these mechanisms in mind?
No, probably the first one.
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Brand recognition relies on the evolution of core elements of the brand. Replacing core elements is a form of change, but it’s not a form of evolution.
I don’t really see it like that, and I think you’re trying to appeal to an incredible narrow definition: see the variety of Star Wars games. That’s one brand name covering multiple genres, conventions, etc.
And the point I was making was that that your example *isn’t* analogous to what is actually happening in most cases: Max Payne will most probably *not* be radically different from the original game, despite some thematic changes. People aren’t making radically different games in most cases, and they certainly aren’t here.
There are a few absurd and notable exceptions to this, of course.
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“…OMG another gritty grey, brown, dark gloomfest! Use some colour and light ffs!”
“…OMG so much bloom and bright light! Use darkness, brown, grey and gritty ffs!
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It is a pretty major shift Schumg. New York is noir, brazil is NOT. Part of a noir setting is the gritty city full of crime and shadowy characters. Not running out in day light in the beautiful jungle with brightly colored buildings. that is not noir
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@Nick, we still don’t know just how much has been actually changed though. I’m all for being upset if the game bears zero resemblance, but as of now, he is older (by 12 years) and in a different country, that to me isn’t enough to suddenly say this is going to be completely different. We know nothing of the story, his motivations, how bullet time works, how cover works or anything like that. This could be a very loyal representation as far as we know, even if there happens to be sunlight somewhere along his journey. Besides, nobody was this upset when Max had facial reconstruction in MP 2. How can we now hold this game in contempt for doing the same thing as a game we all loved? If anything, his face changing is more of a brand establishment than if he had the same face.
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@Jim: Arguably, though, it’s the themes and, more importantly, the style that made the Max Payne series of games recognisable – less so the gameplay. From what I’ve seen, I think this game could be really cool as a game, but I don’t see any reason *so far* why this one’s Max Payne 3 and not Stranglehold 2. (I’m happy to be convinced otherwise, though.)
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Serondal: Sao Paulo *is* a collossal gritty city full of crime and shadowy characters. That’s the point. It’s not a jungle, it’s a gigantic conurbation punctuated with gated communities of the super rich.
ref: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=365328
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You’ve not watched City of God then? Or any of the documentaries about the the gang scene in Rio? Or seen/heard about the favelas? etc etc
There are vast crime ridden slums there and the game is clearly drawing huge lumps of inspiration from Man on Fire . So, yes, it is a shift, but not as huge as some people are making out and TBH, probably a necessary one to make the game feel fresh. Snow streets, abandoned buildings and warehouses only go so far. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it’s going to be a very similar game with many of the similar elements from previous ones in a different setting – so what’s the issue?
In fact, if you read my original post you can see I’m a bit concerned myself about them losing some of the grime and grit from the Brazilian locale by bleaching it all out in a haze of uber bloom – but that’s a fairly easily fixable issue.
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Some observations:
1 – Yes, Brazil is violent. BUT it isn’t that bad actually (I live in a region where we have a high HDI and somewhat peacefulness – Only Rio that gets the flak, but then again, they are in a fucking urban civil war there) though I am 95% sure that the media around here is going to capitalize on the cries of “WAAAAAAAH FUCK AMERICA WE ARE PEACELOVING AND SHIT”. Not that South America matters for the game industry…
2 – Even with all the changes, gonna give the game a try… Who knows, “Paulistana” noir might work! :)
p.s. – is Rio or São Paulo? São Paulo is WAY more grayer than the screenies.
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“and some peacefulness”, bloody fast typing.
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I hear the rumblings about the setting and the shiny graphics, but fail to come up with any argument that hasn’t already been stated, although I do fall on the side of thinking that this could still be a noir parody game. But I fail to understand why people say the main character isn’t reminiscent of Max Payne. He seems to have the same facial structure under that beard, and I for one have no problem with characters I like evolving, or aging in this case. Hell, for all the naysayers know he might have a shave and put a suit on half-way through the game. Why does something need to stay static and unchanging just because that’s what YOU liked?
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This thread is exactly why gamers deserve everything they get. Hell, they’ll even pay for it.
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Jermey – I assumed in MP2 he had discovered Ex-lax.
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I dunno, I supose I’ll have to give it a chance. Just as long as they fit in there a drug induced trip scene where you have to walk through spac on a trail of blood while a baby cries in Spanish in the distance.
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@Schmung: me and Brother None have been over that already; City of God is not a noir movie, granted it is a violent and gritty movie, but not noir by most stretches of the imagination. There is plenty of South American noir inspiration to be found (as previously mentioned, Luis Bunuel’s dismantling of noir tropes would’ve been an intelligent evolution and an entirely acceptable step forward) but they don’t appear to have taken it which in my opinion is a bit of a shame.
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@Mathew, its called “entitlement”, the newest craze amongst gamers.
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@Jim
Games of Stars Wars are immediately identified as Stars Wars games because they always rely on the iconic elements of the series. You will hear the Stars Wars main song, watch the same style of intro, you will see laser sabers, or wookies, or X-Wings, or Jedi…
I see these screens and I would never think they belong to a Max Payne sequel, I fail to identify the character or the setting. What’s exactly the point then?
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Also, I was going to reply to Jim’s post but Acosta summed it up fairly well.
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I’m not saying it has. I’m saying it’s looking bad, but mostly I’m arguing in a general sense about the value of brand recognition.
That’d be because the Star Wars brand isn’t actually a gaming brand, now wouldn’t it?
Funny, they used the same argument for Fallout 3, yet there are very few gameplay or setting elements still intact from the originals in the third iteration.
A bit of a slippery slope there, Jim. What is “radical”? All that does is shift the debate away from the meaningful – whether or not the changes make sense as an evolution of existing themes* – and change it into some kind of nebulous discussion about whether or not they changed too much. Indeed, you could argue how much change is ok, but if you focus on that you’re obfuscating the issue of change vs evolution within a brand. And if you accept this on a smaller scale, what’s to stop anyone from pushing back the boundaries of this scale until suddenly what is “radical” today is normal tomorrow.
* And, possibly, if the changes make sense. For instance, they’re changing Max Payne’s look from unique into predictable and gritty. Even accepting this freedom within the brand, how is that a good thing?
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So wait, the major problem here is that everyone thinks Brazil consists entirely of perpetual carnivals and showboating footballers? I thought the internet was supposed to help us overcome this kind of blind national stereotyping?
Go watch City of God, then come back to me and tell me this isn’t an appropriate setting for Max Payne.
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Also, if someone is doubting the noir potential of it, go check Jim’s link to Neogaf. ffs.
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I’d say the bigger shift is not the setting, but the fact that more of the game seems to be outdoors in the daylight (well, at least that’s what the few details we have suggest).
And you know what? That works. Max Payne was self consciously Noir-esque and thus in the dark. Now an older Max is doing the Neo-Noir thing(think Chinatown, LA Confidential) taking the Noir thing into the sun bleached outdoors.
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@ Pijama
We can’t any more, Jim has crashed the site :D
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My mistake, just my internet playing up.
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“Yes, I too love using straw men instead of honestly debating.”
Says the guy who used the Audrey-Tautou-meets-man-in-rubber-suit-as-Aliens-sequel example.
P.
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Do leave off the personal attacks, you naughty men.
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HE STARTED IT, MISS!
P.
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It’s difficult not to be disappointed with the limited amount of exposure that we have of the game so far… Evolution of a concept is one thing, but radical transformation is quite another and so far, nothing we know indicates that this is a real Max Payne experience.
Add to that the spectacular incompetence that Rockstar displayed in the PC port of GTA4 and I am quite worried as to how this title will turn out.
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RockStar did cite City of God as one of their inspirations. Which is exactly the issue. I’d be fine if they do South American noir, or even a form of neo-noir if its ties directly to Max Payne . City of God isn’t noir, it’s gritty, and if MP3 turns from noir to gritty…well, that’s the problem in a nutshell.
That’s not a straw man. A straw man is putting words in another person’s mouth, as in “some people say” followed by a statement nobody made a claim to. I wasn’t claiming anyone made that example, other than me.
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You know, I think I’m with the “this isn’t max payne” camp, though I’m going to wait and see when we’ve got more images than this.
(I mean, there is ways it could work. Hell, I would have happily watched OMAR FROM THE WIRE’S ADVENTURES SOUTH OF THE BORDER. There is, as others have noted, lineages to play off and stuff to do. And marketting shots don’t mean much. The “He is a fat man” stuff totally fits into much of Max Payne, at least)
But going on grabs alone – this is like STALKER 2 being set on a beautiful mediteranean island. It abandons certain atmospheric tropes which were central to the appeal of the original. STALKER and MAX PAYNE were both more than their mere mechanics.
KG
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this fella couldn’t get that big/fat in 12 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Lake
although he does look like he might be addicted to something.
the change in setting seems entirely reasonable, considering the poor sod was always moping about at night in crappy weather for the first 2 games. after he’s bullet-timed a dozen faceless josés, at least he can work on his tan or score some decent coke.
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Why get such a huge license and then make an unrelated game? This is not Max Payne.
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@mo
We could say all of that, but we would look a little foolish.
Yes, Max Payne (“A PC GAME!!11onone”) had bullet time, a button that when you press it…gave you an essential edge in combat as you were always seriously outgunned, outmanned and usually outflanked. MP was trying to convey the point that a man on the edge, a man with nothing left to lose but who is determined to reek vengeance will not allow anything to stop him, even overwhelming odds. Good to see you totally missed that =)
Console shooters, on the other hand, are just easy. MP is a classic example of this in fact. Back when it launched it was also released on PS2 and a friend of mine attacked the PC version saying that the controls were “rubbish” and “unintuitive”. When I questioned this clearly bonkers statement I discovered that in fact he meant that he could play the PS2 version with ease but failed miserably at the PC version. Naturally when I pointed out the PS2 version had its enemies dumbed down (much slower reaction times) and that all he had to do to target and enemy was press the “target” button and that these ludicrous over simplifications were the reason he could play the PS2 version he went into a bit of a huff.
Point is, console game does NO favours to PC gaming EVER.
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@ Keiron and Pags
I’d agree with you if there was more of an indicator that they’d moved away from noir stylings, but there isn’t really. Sao Paulo offers a good landscape for it, and merely being in daylight doesn’t preclude it (neo-noir people). Which is a logical evolution of the Max Payne style.
But to claim that it’s betrayed it’s roots based on what little information we have is a bit pointless.
Honestly, I don’t know why people can’t wait for actual information before they go all AIM, there’s no point raging a out things that may or may not happen.
Have patience you can get angry later.
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Hopefully we get a very impactful Bloom slider and a perfect mix of Max Payne and Cidade de Deus. It could work, Rockstar Vancouver/Barking Dog (HW: Cataclysm, Global Operations, Bully on PS2) isn’t exactly the black sheep of the Rockstar family like Rockstar New England/Mad Doc (Bully PC and GTA IV PC versions) is.
Though the console focus will probably ruin everything I think. :(
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@Dante: Yes, some people go all AIM. Others are bewildered, more than anything else, and lumping them in with the AIMs is doing nothing for the discussion IMO. Thing is, what both previous Max Payne games did is essentially this: they were riffs (call ‘em pastiche or parody if you will) of noir clichés and iconography. Can you tell a noir story in Sao Paolo? Absolutely (although I’d agree with earlier points that City of God, a great movie, is in no way noir). Can you do a noir pastiche/parody/riff/thingy set in Sao Paolo? I guess it can be pulled off, but I reserve the right to be doubtful, though it can still be a nice enough game in its own right.
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I think the main problem here is my dislike of “IP”. It does seem here like they’ve shoehorned a license into a game that would be perhaps better served by just choosing a new gruff guy with guns. I understand the commercial logic (at least, assuming more people will buy due to the license), but it would make more narrative sense to start fresh.
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@Brother None,
I’m curious, are you upset with City of God being one of the inspirations, or are you afraid it is the onlyinspiration? Max Payne games aren’t known for being particular non-violent, and perhaps they’re using certain elements from the movie for storyline inspiration, rather than generating the entire theme from that one movie. There is a lot of “you killed my brother so now I will kill you”, a sort of violence begetting violence theme throughout City of God, that isn’t something that in my mind necessarily contradicts Max Payne outright, and it isn’t something that cannot be easily infused into a noir theme.
KG, I think changing the setting can be dangerous of course, but I think more so with Stalker, seeing as Cherynobyl is in one place and one place only. You can bring angst and emotions to any city or country in the world :) A person can argue that Max Payne belongs in that one particular city, and it would probably be a very valid argument at that. What it will come down to for me is whether or not the setting has been changed for a good reason, or if it was just changed for the sake of change. At this point it seems that they have to sell all of us on why exactly the setting has been changed.
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The fact that none of those shots look even remotely noir or that their stated influence for chosing this setting (City of God and Elite Squad), or their explicit statement that it’s a “new kind of noir”, “about looking at world in a bleak way” and “it’s more contemporary”, none of those things even remotely indicate they’re moving away from the existing style
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I’m afraid it confuses the issue. The stated logic here seems to be “Max Payne was gritty, City of God is gritty, so let’s transplant Max Payne on City of God and it’ll be great”. Whether or not that’s Rockstar’s logic I don’t know, but I fear it might be, from what they said to GI.
Thematically, there’s a lot you could pluck from City of God and still keep it noir. Indeed, the human themes of City of God are very appropriate to a noir film or game. It’s more that I’m afraid that – as is often the case – people lose sight of the difference between gritty and noir.
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Kiron said: “OMAR FROM THE WIRE’S ADVENTURES SOUTH OF THE BORDER”
I’d play that sooooooooo hard. Just hearing everywhere I go “it’s Omar Omar” would make me feel giddy inside.
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I’d play “Omar’s adventures south of the border” sooooo hard.
Just hearing everywhere I go “yo, es Omar Omar” and people start sillently etting out of site would make me feel giddy.
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The one thing that excited the most about this thread is the thought of reinventing Max Payne vis a vis Oldboy. I’d rather play it than watch a Will Smith remade movie (which is hopefully a dead project now).
Personally, I’m glad to see older protagonists in games. My first thought was also Sam Fisher and it’s good to see, hopefully, developers continuing to retool the concept of IP instead of reskin / rehash / resell.
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@Rossignol
Exactly.
So long as the game is good who, apart from the die hard MAX PAYNE, really cares what they have done to the ip?
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[Die hard max payne FAN obviously]
Also why are people up in arms over something they haven’t even played?
Are we all really so concerned about what we’ve made up in our own heads?
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I find it funny that this entire conversation has been dominated by noir, when Max Payne isn’t really noir at all. It makes use of a few trappings of the genre, but it deals with the themes in a very shallow (and often contradictory) manner.
If anything, it’s Hong Kong bullet opera. The franchise owes far more to John Woo than Raymond Chandler.
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Radiant, can you ever just make one comment?
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Well hopefully they can properly marry both gritty and noir together, in an altogether new setting. In all honesty my gut reaction was to hate the new MP 3 look, but I think after I’ve had some time to mull it over, I’m skeptically hopeful.
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One of the issues I think this brings up is the problem of numbered sequels. Although movies do have their fair share of those, I feel like there are far fewer 2′s and III’s in that industry than in the videogame industry. Which is not to say that the movie industry is so much more creative and original, as it makes tons of what essentially are sequels, only it is more subtle, or at least more flexible, in its way of informing the customer. If you go to see a Michael Bay movie, it doesn’t need to be titled ” XIV” for you to know basically what you’re getting. The name of the director, or actor, or producer can be a “brand” as much as a title. And avoiding numbered sequels means you don’t have to deal with the limitations of all the expectations that numbered sequels engender.
One would think that simply the name “Rockstar” on the box should be able to sell a good game as having “Max Payne 3″, but apparently it won’t. (Or at least Rockstar doesn’t think so)
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Ah, no edit button. When I’m talking about the theoretical Michael Bay movie above, I meant to say “it doesn’t need to be titled ‘[previous Michael Bay movie title] XIV’ for you to know basically what you’re getting”
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what the hell is this bullshit? What has this thing to do with max payne? Damn this is so wrong.
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Those screenshots makes me wonder if it’ll still be a Max Payne game. It was a film noir game, this looks like a Disney cartoon with Rambo in the main role.
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I’ll repeat this because everyone else has ignored it in among the “Everyone else is an idiot”, “Those guys want every game to look the game” and “My opinions are the hardest” comments.
They’re not using the original writing team. Thats more damaging to me than a bit of bloom or a bloody cover mechanic. My problem with click on cover mechanics is to me they just feel awkward, clunky and irritating compared to the old lean buttons. The number of times I’ve had to jam on the controls just to step forward is frankly embarrassing. Also Max was never about cover.
Also, what Kieron said.
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What’s with the recent hobo fad? There’s a banner on this site for “Hobowars” which looks like a mybrute clone. The original Splinter Cell concept showed Sam Fisher as a bum in a park and now Max Payne has come to this.
Am I on to something here or simply on something?
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Jesus, I am NOT liking the news today! D:
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@Nick
I really can’t.
I didn’t think anyone would notice.
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Fanclub.
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As long as the game delivers fun, over-the-top slo-mo action and attaches an over-acted neo-noir storyline with some entertaining characters I’ll be happy enough. Anyone who thinks Max Payne was anything more than that all things said and done is kidding themself.
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actually i just remembered the film man on fire , thats set in rio or similar and had a good feel to it, so yeah i think this could work.
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“I sometimes think the complete lack of understanding of the difference between change and progress is one of the most harmful things in the gaming industry.”
And, in fact, everything else.
This doesn’t look like interesting new ideas or more of the same delicious rainy-NY-noir-cheese-amiable-parody. They’ve turned a fairly generic (if smoothy done) shooter with a winning atmosphere into a fairly generic (and quite possibly equally competent) shooter with a generic atmosphere. And they’re abusing the name synonymous with the former settings. Yawn.
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I’d of kind of be happier with fat Bald Max in New York, or even a European City (maybe taking a leaf out of Liam Nesson in Trashtastic but hugely entertaining ‘Taken’ territory). South America on top of the physical transformation just seems a bit too far…..
Will wait for the reviews on this one…
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Being an actual, living resident of São Paulo, I can attest that none of those shots even remotely resemble the actual city. This looks like it’s set in Rio – even the thugs are wearing the wrong football team colours, for Mona’s sake.
I would find it very irritatating if they were to fill the game with Favela-like environments ripped straight from City of God and then claim it was set in São Paulo.
That’s akin to having a long ‘Strip’ full of casinos in a game that claims to be set in Los Angeles, or Crips and Bloods in a game supposedly set in San Francisco.
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They better optimize that sad excuse for an engine of theirs. I already wasted my hard-earned pennies on gta iv just to find out how they screwed up PC owners again.
This game might end up decent, but I doubt it’ll get even close to Max Payne 1 or 2 in atmosphere.
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Stop the wow gayness.
It could all be a drug trip and really he’s a fat bald man in a filthy piss-soaked New York subway station.
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PC exclusive or another poor console port from Rockstar? Max Payne 2 remains one of my favourite games, but the two poorly coded releases from Rockstar last year have left me cautious when it comes to buying their wares.
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To BonSequitur:
Yeah, it’s extremely irritating when people equate Brazil with Rio de Janeiro, thinking that all of our cities look like that. And it happens way too often.
But maybe that’s not what’s happening this time… maybe the game actually takes place in Rio (or at least that’s what I hope, because then the screenshots would make more sense). All we know so far is that the family he’s working for is from São Paulo, but they could have traveled to Rio, then shit happened while they were there and now hobo-Max and his beer gut have to kill a bunch of flamenguistas in slow motion to set things right.
To Serondal:
“Just as long as they fit in there a drug induced trip scene where you have to walk through spac on a trail of blood while a baby cries in Spanish in the distance.”
That would be pretty fucking stupid, considering we actually speak Portuguese here.
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I like ponies.
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I want things to happen to him that would kill any normal man, yet just causes him to clutch his head and limp, then shake it off and start diving around like an athlete, in slow motion. As long as it has that, and some angsty wisecracks, it’s Max Payne.
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@Rubeck Portuguses then, it makes no differene to me it all sounds the same when don’t understand it. Still I’m a little surprised that you felt the need to curse. It is after all a drug induced trip scene, why not Spanish? It isn’t like things have to make sense when you’re tripping on pain killers or brain injuries and the like, that is actually kind of the point.
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Portuguese that is ;P , stupid edit button.
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Do you get to kill ponies? It’s Max Payne if they’re fill of pain pills!
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What about if there is a scene where you get to hit a Piñata with a bat or maybe shoot it with a shotgun and then pain pills come pooring out as all the kids shove them into their mouth at which point Max wakes up with his head being pushed into a murky pool of standing water full of Mosquitoes larvae and leeches that are crawling on his face.
(Rubeck before you post, I don’t know for a fact they have Piñata in your country, so don’t get all offended, but I do know you have mosquitoes!)
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Thanks for the link on Sao Paulo Jim, interesting read. You should put a link to it on the main part of the article.
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On the plus side, getting fat and going bald will give Max plenty of new things to brood darkly about.
“The immense bulge of my paunch undulated with my every step, but the mass of my flesh was light compared to the weight of what I had done…”
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This has the potential to be VERY noir! Except it’s going to be New Orleans noir, with voodoo and zombies etc (think Grim Fandango without the humour). I can sort of see a drugged-up Max thinking of himself as an unfeeling zombie after all he’s been through.
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This would look better at night me thinks, if you’ve seen Brazil’s slums at night (I’ve only seen photos) it doesn’t look like a place I would want to be.
Also, since it’s the same engine as GTA IV, will it have Euphoria in it? So that I can dive into people and knock them over.
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“No NY
No Noir
No Remedy
No point
No Max Payne 3″
No West Coast
No seriously written fiction
No Black Isle
No point
No Fallout 3
See what I did there?
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I don’t care if the game is awesome
Surely that’s all that matters, ultimately. Getting upset about altering franchise templates is one thing, saying that keeping things “in the tradition of” is more important than good games being produced is a little silly.
Surely you cannot support this horrific abuse of the license?
From what I’ve seen so far, Rockstar are doing nothing to develop the “Max Payne” franchise, all they seem to be doing is cashing in on the license.
Its like making a Star Trek sequel with Lightsabers and the introduction of “The Force”… just because thats what some marketing dude thinks will sell.
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You lost me at cover system.
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You people are fun. Cashing in on the license? R* are rank amateurs compared to the likes of what Square-Enix have done with Final Fantasy over the years, or how Namco has pimped out Pacman in all sorts of ways.
But when R* tries something different for the first time with an established character, it’s all hell to pay. lulz.
Remember, kids: it’s only noir if it’s in B&W, grainy or set during night time. Taxi Driver ain’t noir!
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@Diogo
Final Fantasy is a Square Enix creation, they can do whatever they want with that, especially as it doesn’t have any kind of internal coherency between chapters and spin offs.
Max Payne is not Rockstar creation and it had an internal coherency (one that finished with Max Payne 2 by the way). Using the name for nothing else that for free marketing is what I’m complaining about, they may have a brand, but I question their right to just do whatever they want with it. If they wanted to make a kick ass third action game with cover system and bald main character they didn’t need Max Payne at all.
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I’m not even going to bother properly joining the debat, all I have is eight little words in regard to the Film Noir set in a tropical location:
Orson fucking Welles, Charlton Heston: Touch of Evil.
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@Acosta?
It would be great if brand expansion was solely dictated by who created it. I say this with no irony – I would have prefered if several games I know would have grown by the hands of those that created them. But that’s not how it works. What matters is who owns the brand now. Am I saying I enjoy everything a brand owner does with it? No (see: Fallout 3, X-Com spin-offs, Baldur’s Gate miscellanea on consoles, etc.). Am I saying they have the right to do so? Very much, yes.
Also, we’re talking about internal consistency (verisimilitude?) of a videogame where the lead character is shot repeatedly at point blank including headshots, takes pain-killers by the bucketload with no consequence, has overdosed on experimental drugs and survived, had the likeable but inept goon suddenly turn into a criminal masterming (Vlad), and saw Mona Sax dying in his arms only to actually be alive on a higher difficulty setting (“thank you Max but the princess is in a higher difficulty level!”)
But a bald head, muscles and a trip to Brasil is suddenly lacking in consistency? That’s actually more plausible than most Max went through the games. If they can’t properly convey the reasons for the change, that’s one thing. If they can, more power to them.
Besides, the story of Max Payne could very well have ended in the first title. It’s arguable whether there was a need for the sequel, even, in terms of character and story development.
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*mastermind. “masterming” sounds like it came out straight of Defenders of the Earth.
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@Diogo
Every medium has its own language and limitations. There are many great films that could get crushed if we overanalyze them. The discussion (for me at least) is not about if Max Payne it´s a master work of narrative, but a serious doubt about this sequel being nothing else than using successful name to get some extra marketing for their new third person action game, built over something they didn’t create.
This is how things works, no doubt, but I still have a right to complain about such cynicism. I see less and less respect for the brands in videogames, relegated to a role of attention grabbers and recognizable names, no matter if the game is a high point of the medium or an action game with some personality. I just want developers doing their own stuff, and searching their own ways, instead of trying to build their games over what others created.
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@Acosta:
I’m not disagreeing with you on a base level – as I pointed out I would have prefered that several games, which were acquired by other studios or changed developers, were not something I enjoyed. But can we claim R* is doing something so different than what Remedy did with Max Payne 2? MP2 has been seen by some as unnecessary, only using a successful name to get marketing for a title which could have been something new instead.
Even if we somehow justify Remedy over R* because of right of ownership, there are many examples of games which benefited from outside talent to maintain relevancy in the medium, and that sometimes had to cut through what the original creators had done.
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Looks bad imo. I don’t want Max Payne to be fat and bald, and I sure as hell do not want Max Payne in South America. Surely Rockstar is playing a joke on us?
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